*
Eleanor woke with a pounding headache, wondering for a moment where she was. She pulled the sheets over her head and curled into a tight ball, wishing she could will herself back to sleep, but she’d carefully developed the art of waking quickly: her mind was already racing ahead into plans for their first morning in the city. She stretched out, and started in surprise as her foot brushed against something warm.
Daniel.
She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and looked down at him. He was snoring lightly, lower lip quivering with each exhalation, apparently oblivious to the world. Slowly, fragmented memories of the night before started to come back into Eleanor’s mind.
After Gisele had opened the bottle of Burning Death it had all become very fuzzy, very quickly, but somehow they’d found their way to bed. She studied Daniel’s features as he slept. His hair fell across the pillow in an untidy mass; it had grown long while they’d been at sea, and the sun had turned it almost white from its usual straw colour.
One of the few vivid recollections she had from the night before was the feeling of that hair between her fingers as she hooked her hands behind his head, his face only an inch or two above hers, the weight of his body pressing down on her... but she couldn’t remember how they’d gone from stumbling up the stairs to finding themselves in that position.
She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. How had it happened? She was quite sure that she irritated him just as much as he did her. However drunk they’d been, it was hard to imagine either of them initiating what had been – she recalled this much – a thoroughly exhilarating experience. She ran her fingers across his shoulders, gently kneading his muscles with her fingertips. Yes, he was a pain, but apparently he annoyed her a lot less in bed than he did anywhere else.
“What happened last night?” she asked, pulling her hand away as his eyes flickered open.
“Do you not remember?”
“We drank a lot.” She held her throbbing temples in her hands. “I remember that much.”
“We should get up. It is late, and we have work to do. I will make something for your headache.”
“I remember it was fun,” she said, not willing to give up that easily. “We should do it again sometime.”
“I think not.” He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and started combing the knots out of his hair. “We were drunk. It was a mistake.”
“Why not?” She tugged at his arm but he pushed her hand away. “If we’re supposed to be acting married, we might as well have the benefits.”
“You want to give up?” he asked, getting to his feet. “After all we went through last year, now you want to go home and tell the council that you want to stop work, you want to have babies? We are too young.”
She stared at him in shock. “Who mentioned children? I was only talking about having a bit of fun.”
He shook his head. “Women bring complications. Vulnerabilities. Why do you think the Association has only ever admitted men before you?”
“How dare you?” She jumped out of bed and followed him across the room. He was splashing himself with cold water from the basin, and she positioned herself between him and the bowl so he couldn’t ignore her.
“You do not like me to say women are vulnerable? Look at yourself.” He turned her so she was facing her own naked body in the mirror. “We spent one drunken night together and suddenly you want more. Tell me that is not a vulnerability. And women must carry the babies, and you cannot work if your belly is swollen. No, it is not because women cannot fight, but because women cannot be trusted to remain devoted to the task at hand.”
She glared at his reflection. “You’re just jealous that I’m a better fighter than you, and I don’t get seasick, and... And I don’t think I want you any more, anyway, if you’re going to say things like that.” She scooped up a jug full of water and began to wash herself vigorously, pounding her skin in an attempt to let out some of her frustrations.
“You think you are a better fighter?” He sounded amused, which infuriated her all the more.
“Yes.” She carried on washing, trying to ignore his provocations. Their relative strengths were well established – he was a genius with poisons and potions, but only adequate with a weapon, and she was the opposite. It was what would make them a good team. She told herself she had nothing to prove; it had been proved long ago. Satisfied with her ablutions, she set the jug down and turned to look for a towel.
“Even like this – no weapons, just pure muscle?” As he spoke he caught both her arms and twisted her into a double arm-lock, pinning her wrists into her back.
He had the advantage in height and weight, and she felt cheated into being forced to fight unarmed, but she wasn’t going to let him win. His grip on her wrists was solid despite her wet skin, and since she couldn’t free her hands she hooked a her foot around the back of his knee and tried to unbalance him that way. They stumbled around the room for some time, he refusing to release her arms, she unrelenting in her attacks on his legs, until a corner of the bed got in the way and they both tumbled onto the sheets.
Eleanor took advantage of Daniel’s surprise to snatch her arms away and roll out of his reach. “Call it a draw?” she asked, flexing her wrists. “I don’t really want to fight.”
“Come on, then, get up.” He threw her clothes at her and started to dress himself. “Time for breakfast.”
She dressed quickly, clothes clinging uncomfortably to her still-damp skin, and hid a small throwing knife at her hip. It was harder to conceal weapons beneath the light clothes which suited such a hot climate and she felt worryingly under-armed, but at least her hair-pin doubled as a blowpipe, and she had stilettos in her boot-sheaths.
They walked down to the embassy’s dining room in awkward silence. A spread of exotic fruit was laid out alongside more familiar breads and cheeses from the Empire, and they found themselves the only people in a room that could easily have seated twenty.
“Looks like we missed the others,” Eleanor said as they filled their plates.
“I told you it was late to be getting up.”
“Well, it’s probably for the best. We would’ve needed to lose them anyway.”
“That is not the point. It would have been useful to have more time.”
“We’ve been at sea for two months – half a day won’t make much difference,” Eleanor said. “The only urgency is that we have to do our trade thing tomorrow.”
“That does not require much.”
“Well, I’d like to wander through the markets and check out the competition.”
“But we are not intending to make any deals.”
“It’s better if they don’t realise that. Come on, it’s not far, and it won’t take long to get a feel for how things work here.” She didn’t mention her continuing internal fight to convince herself that she wasn’t back in Taraska, but she hoped the market would highlight the differences.
“Do you need something for your head first?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
They stepped out into the dry heat of the city and walked up the hill to the point where the harbour road intersected with the main east-west route. At the crossroads a paved square made for a convenient marketplace, and Eleanor was pleased to see it was nothing like Taraska’s cosmopolitan trade hub. Here, a ramshackle collection of temporary stalls catered mostly to a local crowd; there was no danger of turning a corner and coming upon something as unpleasant as the slave children she’d seen in Taraska.
“We have no competition here,” Daniel said, waving dismissively at the little grocery stalls. “This has nothing to do with the Imperial trade routes.”
“I need to see what their fishermen have brought in,” Eleanor said. “They can’t possibly have the variety that we see back home, but it’d be useful to make sure.”
Daniel followed a couple of steps behind as she strode towards what appeared to be the fish and meat section of the market. “You are taking this far too se
riously.”
“And you’re not taking it seriously enough. We can’t afford to raise any more suspicions.”
Most of the fishermen had small carts that were almost empty after the morning’s rush, but what remained on display was of a markedly different character to the stock of the fish markets back home: a lot of eels and sea-snakes, and some crates of tiny fish that any self-respecting Charanthe fisherman would have thrown straight back into the sea.
“I need to go down to the harbour first thing tomorrow, when the boats come in,” Eleanor said. “But if this is what’s normal here, then it’s looking good.”
“Can we get on with the real work now?”
“Fine.” She stepped into the shade of a nearby building. “Where do you want to start?”
“We should find out what the official Taraska presence is. There must be an embassy in the city, at least.”
“Yeah, I think they have the building next to ours.” Eleanor glanced back along the road they’d walked up. “I saw their crest this morning.”
“I cannot imagine who allowed that to happen.”
“It works both ways – could be useful if we need to get in there. Anyway, we could walk that way now, and then down to the harbour.”
Daniel looked puzzled. “You just said you wanted to go to the harbour tomorrow.”
“That’s for the fish. We need to find out about boats heading east.”
“I had hoped we could find a cart.”
Eleanor still found his seasickness amusing – it wasn’t what she would have expected of someone who went to school on a ship – but she managed to stop herself commenting on it directly.
“It’s a long way,” she said. “It’ll be more comfortable to sail in this climate, and quicker.”
“Perhaps.”
“And we should be able to stick to coastal waters, so it won’t be too rough. At the very least we should ask around.”
Daniel nodded and they started to walk, making slow progress under the glare of the midday sun. They stopped across the street from their embassy and tried to look busy whilst sneaking glances at the grand Tarasanka building next door.
“We will have to go in,” Daniel said.
“Do you really think we’ll find anything?”
“No.”
“Then...?”
“It costs us nothing. It would be foolish to miss this chance to look.”
“I suppose. I just don’t think they’d be stupid enough to send anything here.”